


Laid Bare

by bossxtweed



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Nonbinary Character, Other, binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23368795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/pseuds/bossxtweed
Summary: 13 turns towards Missy for advise regarding safely binding her chest.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	Laid Bare

She’d tried normal bras--- _ with  _ wires,  _ without _ wires,  _ with  _ straps,  _ without  _ straps---and she’d hated the way they felt and the way they stuck out underneath her t-shirts, and she remembered something Missy had ordered,  _ ages ago  _ now, which had safely flattened her chest, and she scrambled to look it up.

“Are there instructions?” she asked, speaking to herself in the console room, the attached monitor merely showing models wearing different colors and styles of binders. “I mean---there  _ have to be  _ instructions!”

She searched through the site, even went to the trouble of finding video explanations, but they all made her  _ uncomfortable--- _ she didn’t want to spend excess time with her shirt off, fumbling with both hands with a tape measure that wouldn’t stay in place, trying to write down the numbers before comparing them with the sizing chart. The very  _ thought  _ of it made her shudder. And yet… and yet,  _ Missy  _ had accomplished it somehow, measuring herself to order her own binders, and perhaps…

“What do y’ say, ol’ girl?” she asked the TARDIS, one corner of her lips curling up nervously. “Think she could help?”

The TARDIS hummed.

“Alright. Let’s---let’s go find her, eh?”

The Doctor fiddled with the controls and sent her ship whirling through the Time Vortex, for once having  _ turned the breaks off-- _ she didn’t want to startle Missy, didn’t know whether or not the other Time Lord would appreciate the TARDIS’ wheezing groan as it landed.

Her hearts pounded in her chest as they landed.

_ Right, then. Just---it’s just a simple question, but… but…  _

The thought of baring her chest to **_anyone_** made her feel uneasy -- she hadn’t yet settled into this new body, and quite frankly she thought it ridiculous how often people looked at her and immediately went, _that’s a woman, maybe she’s confused or maybe she’s_ ** _modern_** _or maybe…_ she shook her head to clear her thoughts and stepped out of her TARDIS, searching for anything that looked out of the ordinary.

And she spotted it, out of the corner of her eye--appearing as a worn-down cabinet with a purple stripe running diagonally across its surface, standing where it  _ shouldn’t  _ be---in the middle of an open, grassy field, seemingly decaying into the earth.

_ Hello,  _ she thought, gently approaching the Master’s TARDIS.  _ Please---I need--- _

Before she could finish her thought, the cabinet doors opened to reveal Missy in  _ far _ more casual attire than the Doctor had ever seen, at least for  _ this  _ version of the Master---a rainbow-striped binder and a pair of fitted purple slacks, with a pair of fuzzy slippers on her feet. 

“Hello, Love,” Missy leaned against the doorway and batted her eyelashes at the Doctor. “You were going to ask for something, I believe?”

The Doctor opened her mouth but no words came.

Noticing the Doctor’s hesitation, Missy reached out a hand, which the Doctor took, and the pair of them stepped inside, into a classic-appearing console filled with purple light. Still holding her hand, Missy searched the Doctor’s face, wondering just  _ what  _ had brought her here on this day, noting the distress which sparkled in her eyes and the nervous downcurl of her lips, and her hearts ached to see her so.

“It’s alright, love. Take your time.” 

The Doctor closed her mouth then reopened it, letting out a small sound, something akin to a sob, and she lifted one hand and vaguely gestured towards Missy’s striped binder.

She gasped, her blue eyes growing wide, and she offered what she hoped was a comforting smile. “Of course, dearie.” She let go of the Doctor’s hand, turned towards the TARDIS interior, and indicated that the Doctor follow her. “Would you like me to help you measure?”

Still hesitant, the Doctor nodded.

Missy frowned. “Sorry, Love, but I need you to speak up. It’s  **_your_ ** body, and I’m not going to touch you if you’re nae comfortable.”

Her mouth felt dry, her hearts were pounding in her ears, and despite her uncertainty and discomfort, she managed, “yes, Koschei. I don’t---I don’t know what I’m doing, and you’ve done it before, and--”

Missy stretched one hand out to cup the Doctor’s cheek. “‘s’alright, Love. I’ll do the best I can.” 

The Doctor reached for Missy’s free hand and twined their fingers together, finding comfort in the contact, aided by Missy psychically singing an ancient lullaby, something which Theta had often sung to calm Koschei down whenever the latter suffered from a migraine as children.  _ Thank you, _ she thought,  _ thank you.  _

Side-by-side, they walked through the purple-lit hallways, passing a series of doors painted in various colors with a different Gallifreyan marking etched into each one--- _ there _ was a library,  _ there _ a kitchen,  _ there _ an aviary--- _ wonder what kinda birds she keeps,  _ the Doctor thought vaguely, noting where the medbay was, then a forest habitat, then----

“Here we are, Love,” Missy stated gently, leading the Doctor into a wide, multi-storied room filled with cupboards, racks, and a few scattered mannequins clothed in outfits from different time periods across Earth. 

“It’s different from mine,” the Doctor mused, looking around the room, her hearts pounding anxiously in her chest. “A lot more---”

“Organized?” Missy teased, nothing but kindness showing in her blue eyes. “Well, I _try_ to have some order in here, _and_ I’ve been **_washing_** my clothes, unlike _someone…”_

The Doctor turned towards her, nose scronched, and retorted, “hey! I resent that!”

Leaning forward, Missy gently patted the Doctor’s cheek, saying, “ah, Love. Course you do. But---if you’ll follow me, I keep a measure near the binders, makes it easier whenever someone needs to borrow one. They don’t match bra sizes,” she explained, turning around to guide the Doctor up a flight of stairs to where stood a rack filled with gender-affirming shapewear. 

“They don’t?” the Doctor asked, marvelling at her friend for knowing all of this. “That’s... _ hm. _ How’d you learn all this?”

Letting go of the Doctor’s hand, Missy raised her shoulders nonchalantly, saying, “I dinnae know… I just… it didn’t  _ feel  _ right, when I was first in this body, and it  _ continued  _ to not feel right, even when I made myself up for you, put on all the petticoats and skirts and corsets, and so I did a bit of research and found that humans had created something  _ useful  _ for once…” 

She stepped forward, took up a tape measure, then turned towards the Doctor, her expression full of nothing but kindness and patience. “You’ll need to take your shirts off, love,” she started, “ye can set them on this table,” she motioned with her free hand towards a sleek, black end table, “and let me know if any of this makes you uncomfortable.”

The Doctor nodded, shrugged her coat off and hung it up, undid the straps of her suspenders such that they hung loosely around her waist, took off her t-shirt which she folded and set down gently, and hesitated before taking off her long-sleeved undershirt, leaving her chest painfully exposed.

“I’ll start with your back,” Missy stated gently, motioning with an index finger for the Doctor to turn around, which she did, holding her head aloft and keeping her gaze anywhere but on her chest. 

Missy stretched the measuring tape, placed it between the Doctor’s shoulder blades, and whispered a number aloud, speaking in their native tongue, before gently asking her to turn around and stand with her arms outstretched.

“Thank-you, Missy. For… for helping.”

“Of course, Love. I know how scary this must be,” Missy spoke softly, carefully wrapping the tape around the middle of the Doctor’s chest, watching the other’s expression all-the-while. “When I was doing this for myself, I wanted to cry from frustration---the tape wouldn’t stay in place and I had to  _ look at myself  _ in the mirror, and it all took longer than it should’ve,” she whispered another number before carefully shifting the tape, noting first the width above and then below the Doctor’s breasts. 

Cool fingers carefully unwrapped the tape, letting it snap shut before setting it back on the little table, and in the next moment Missy had pulled several binders from the rack which she offered to the Doctor, saying, “here you are, love. There are fitting roo--”

The Doctor cut her off, saying, “no, I’ll---I’ll try them on here. There’s a mirror around the corner, and---and I can just use that, when---”

Missy nodded patiently and took a step back, “of course.”

The Doctor quickly found that she didn’t like the half-tanks; they left far too much of her skin exposed for her liking, and so she grabbed one of the full tanks and, after a moment, put it on and walked over to the mirror, turning first this way and then that, her lips parted and her eyes wide at the sight.

“It’s--- _ oh!”  _ she lifted her gaze to meet Missy’s in the mirror before turning around and lifting the smaller Time Lord into a tight hug.

Missy wrapped her arms around the Doctor in turn, a few happy tears working their way down her cheeks---it had been so long since the two of them had simply  _ been  _ together, and it warmed her hearts to know she’d done the Doctor  _ good  _ for once.

Pulling away after a moment but keeping her hands on Missy’s elbows, the Doctor thanked her again and again----this was  _ wonderful,  _ and she would need to invest in a few of her own, and she could  _ absolutely  _ hold onto the one she was wearing---the deep green complimented her eyes, and no one would need to know she was wearing it if she didn’t want them to.

Comfort---in her skin, in her mind, in the bare lips of her oldest friend. 

Comfort. 


End file.
